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Is the attack helicopter dead?

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Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#411

Post by jajko »

sgc wrote: post #195
pclmulqdq wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russian military doctrine favors collateral damage. I think part of the US's love of precision weapons comes from the fact that they media will go nuts if the US kills non-targets. 20 civilians dying in Iraq to a helicopter that thought their camera was a gun was a national embarrassment. For Russia, 100 civilians dying in a mass artillery bombardment is a normal workday.

> For Russia, 100 civilians dying in a mass artillery bombardment is a normal workday. More specifically, it is a success to them. They clearly use civilian casualty and the terror it brings as a tactic to dishearten their victims.

Last week I've seen russian military coming from 'official' TG channels boasting how they dropped grenades on civilians, Donetsk IIRC. Literally civilians driving in their cars or walking on pedestrian crossing with shopping bags, having grenades dropped on them, killing many including women. Sarajevo tactics all over again, just not serbs anymore (although both societies share a lot in common).

Also during beginning of the war there were videos of russian soldiers setting up machine gun posts next to bigger roads and literally gunning every single unsuspecting civilian car that came along... not much better behavior than hamas attack last year. Bucha, civilian mass graves with people having hands tied behind their back with wire and headshot found on territories won back from them.

Shows how depraved that society is that this doesn't even cause any upheaval, instead is something to boast about back home and to whole world. Now do a simple projection for next decades.

I know China is #1 topic for US right now, but China views US rather as a competitor. Russia views whole west and US specifically as existential threat to actively fight against (and it did in asymetric subversion warfare for past 2 decades). Not whole russian population, they don't give a fuck whether whole world burns as long as they can drink vodka into desperate oblivion, but all their rulers and that's all that matters there. Now how to tackle and survive that due to all the resources required from that land I don't know but future in that regard looks bleak.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#412

Post by jajko »

hajile wrote: post #331
jvanderbot wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dumb question: Why are 12ga shotguns, possibly on small auto-targeting platforms, not a thing yet? Like a CWIS/CRAM but tiny and for close-in engagements?

Look around and you can find tons of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers skeet shooting drones with various levels of success. There are issues though. Skeet guns are 28-34" barrels which is super-long. These guns are also heavy. Once you have ammo loaded up, you're talking 11+ pounds. These guns size and weight make them almost unusable for anything outside of drones. Carrying around an extra gun and heavy ammo is a big…

Double-barreled sawed-off shotgun in Doom style. Anyway you may not have enough time to fire more, and save quite a bit on weight and maneuverability. Maybe some special longer shells with more pellets, any slight touch and those lightweight plastics break and drone goes down.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#413

Post by fastball »

Kye wrote: post #226
Dwedit wrote: post #35

I've been so overexposed to the meme about criticizing gender identity that I've forgotten that attack helicopters are actual military vehicles.

[flagged]

How does one re-evaluate associations and what good does it do? Are associations not automatic by nature?

Additionally, aren't the people you describe (who don't accept an asexual view of gender identity) exactly who was using the meme the whole time? I don't think that group has become much smaller recently (still the majority of people), so if the meme has died down I think it is rather because people have become bored of it.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#414

Post by dalai »

Teever wrote: post #292
JohnBooty wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An air-to-air missile is essentially a single-use drone Yeah. And barring some big advance, an air-to-air missile can't be any smaller than it is currently. It needs to carry enough explosive to damage the target aircraft, and it needs enough fuel to travel at supersonic speeds for a long enough distance to actually intercept the target.

But can it be cheaper? That's the lesson from drones vs tanks.

I think it would already be a big advantage not needing a very expensive launch platform like a fighter jet, even if the unit price of the drone was a bit higher than that of the missile.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#415

Post by HenryBemis »

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #266
MarkMarine wrote: post #218

In the war I fought in, there was a markedly different approach to combat air ops between even just the different service branches. The Army tended to use the Apache like it was a flying tank, hovering and delivering ordinance; the Marines (which is where I fought) flew as low and as quickly as possible even while sending rounds and hellfire missiles downrange. The marines were not losing aircraft in anywhere close t…

Everyone disagreeing with you is only assuming improvements to drones and not the counter-drones (or the counter-counters you mention).

I sometimes frequent on 9gag, and someone had posted a video of UKR drones attacking RUS drones/UAVs. I don't remember seeing a speedometer on the feed of the attacking (UKR) drone, but if I can estimate it was at least (RUS UAVs) 80-100km/h (just cruising/spying) while the (UKR) drones were coming in at twice the speed.

Considering how UAVs and/or smaller drones have evolved and used in the battlefield the past few years, we need to rethink the way to conduct war.

> assuming improvements to drones and not the counter-drones

And I think we just began. The good thing about this (if there is ever a good thing in war/death-dealing) is that a drone carrying a small explosive device to release it over a vehicle will not kill 10k civilians.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#416

Post by efitz »

sneed_chucker wrote: post #5

Part of a broader pattern in military technology right now. All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and an expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against drones right now. If you're fighting a highly asymmetric conflict where your enemies can barely touch your expensive toys then it's less of a concern. If you're fighting near-peer it's a different story.

> All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and an expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against drones right now.

I don’t think that drones are necessarily the only answer to the “expensive weapons with expensive to train crews” problem.

Expensive weapons lead to cost boondoggles and economic asymmetry, eg $10k in modified COTS drones can defeat $MM in conventional armored vehicles.

We should be re-evaluating our weapons systems economically as well as doctrinally.

For example, would our Navy be more effective with thousands of relatively inexpensive small platforms that could do commerce raiding, interdiction, air defense and so forth (destroyer type jobs) than with our expensive and rare large surface combatants?

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#417

Post by fullspectrumdev »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #62
torginus wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more complex than that. The US made Switchblade drones which cost tens of thousands of dollars were outperformed with lightly modified FPVs with grenades, which came in under a thousand.

We don't know if they underperfomed so much as weren't cost effective. If the switchblade costing $10k results in a kill 80% of the time, while the $1k drone is 30% of the time, you just get 3 times as many $1k drones, average about the same kill rate, and save 70% to boot. Or spend the same amount and get about 3x the kill rate.

Switchblade cost closer to 50k$, its payload was around 100 grams of explosive, and its range and success rate in the electronic warfare heavy environment of Ukraine are lower than a 300$ FPV that can carry 1.5kg of explosive.

Switchblade was designed for a different war entirely.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#418

Post by fullspectrumdev »

sgc wrote: post #193
SJC_Hacker wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't know if they underperfomed so much as weren't cost effective. If the switchblade costing $10k results in a kill 80% of the time, while the $1k drone is 30% of the time, you just get 3 times as many $1k drones, average about the same kill rate, and save 70% to boot. Or spend the same amount and get about 3x the kill rate.

Since they are ramping up to build switchblades in Ukraine [1], I would say they are a quiet success. They were just extremely overhyped before they got there. [1] https://kyivindependent.com/us-company-aerovironment-plans-t...

The 600 is significantly better than the 300 (which was provided in higher numbers).

Odds are there will be local adjustments made - different, more robust radio link and such to replace the fucking shit one that originally came with the switchblade.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#419

Post by lucubratory »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #383
guappa wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This needs a very large "citation needed" banner.

Ah yes, the "source?" argument. The classic cry of people who want to disagree but have nothing productive to add to the discussion. I could point you to literally dozens of books on the Pax Americana and its decline (google is your friend) and America's de facto empire, as well as historical studies of the Pax Brittanica and the Pax Romana. Or Chinese histories that discuss the waves of peace and prosperity followin…

This would be a fantastic copypasta for anytime someone requests you prove the outlandish claims you're making.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#420

Post by rjsw »

hollerith wrote: post #384
tomjen3 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

russia is completely corrupt. Nuke upkeep is expensive and is an obvious area for corruption (you will only know at the end of the world). There is zero reason that more than a handful has actually been maintained. Not to mention that their recent launch was a bit - eh. The Soviet Union was evil, but it was somewhat competent. The russian regime is not.

I've never heard any expert in nuclear weapons suggest that Russian nukes don't work, especially the ones that have been modernized since the fall of the SU, which is all the ones attached to ICBMs and SLBMs. Until a few years ago, US nuke experts regularly inspected Russian nukes and Russian nuke delivery systems. If Russian nukes don't work, it seems likely that the inspectors would have been able to tell, e.g., th…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_(missile)
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